At Rs 15,999, Lava Iris Pro 30 is a good looking phone that promises decent all round performance

Lava Iris Pro 30 is a stunner with one of the thinnest bodies in any smartphone

After having garnered the numbers with affordable devices, Indian smartphone makers are slowly testing the upper segments with premium high-spec devices that can take on the bigwigs like Samsung and Apple right where it hurts. While Micromax has been successful with its Canvas series and Lava with Xolo, the latter has just announced a new Iris Pro series with similar ambitions at lower price points. Here we test the first of the lot, the Lava Iris Pro 30.

Design: The Iris Pro 30 does not look like anything you have paid for. In fact, it is a stunner with one of the thinnest bodies in any smartphone, let alone a medium range one. It is slim at just 7.5 mm thickness and feels light at just 114 grams. Adding to this lightweight feel is the matte finish soft plastic back that gives it a superior feel. All ticks marks when it comes to design.

Screen: The Iris Pro 30 has a 720p HD screen from Sharp. But it feels better than some of the other phones with the same resolution thanks to the One Glass Solution that reduces on negates any gap between the touch panel and screen. It is also a very bright screen which makes reading stuff in the sunlight easier.

Performance: The Quadrant and Atuntu benchmark rating put this device between the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Google Nexus 4, which is quite good considering the price point. Multi-tasking is easy, but then you would expect that with a quad core phone. We did not notice any heating up even while playing games. The phone really shone when I played some HD videos from YouTube even as I had the Robocop game paused in the background.

Memory: Lava has been stingy with on board memory before too. This one too just has 4GB of memory out of which the user gets a maximum of 1.5GB free. With so many high end specification, the company could have been a bit more liberal with the space on offer and not let the user buy all the space he needed.

Software: There are not tweaks to the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system. We could find a Lava care app which we thought was a good addition. Lava’s software enhancements like flip to mute, lift to answer and call, voice and face unlocking all work with varying degrees of success. But never at a 100 per cent.

Camera: The 8MP camera on the phone is much better than what you would find in other devices of this price range. It is also very fast, both in auto focus and while clicking. That is something we can live with.

Battery: Lava has added content adaptive backlight control which is claims power consumption on the screen by 30 per cent. But then we could not feel anything extra. But the 2000 mAh battery easily lasts a full working day. If you keep the brightness low you should be able to get back home before the battery completely dies on you.

Verdict: At Rs 15,999 this is a good looking phone that promises decent all round performance. There no serious sore points with the phone, so if it fits your budget go ahead and buy this.